Daily Freeman Life Editor Ivan Lajara talks about journalism, living in the Hudson Valley, language, the Web, cats and even politics. But he shouldn't.

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

DFM chat on improving online conversations

Digital First Media friends and other journalists, members of the community and fans of journalism are invited to take part in a Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time, to talk about all things journalism.

Today we are going to try (again!) to find novel but sustainable ways to improve online conversations. How much time and resources should be devoted to this effort? How can news orgs efficiently harness the conversations happening around them, in social media, forums (reddit?), etc? Can the tone be improved? How can the audience be involved in this effort? What about the best commenting platform as things are more and more mobile-centric?

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Worry, and be happy

Look into the disorganized collection of sad and happy moments that is our very existence and consider that the collection is guaranteed to have both kinds of moments, but which ones we maintain and cherish are up to us. This is hardly an original idea, but it popped into my head today again and I wanted to finally settle it in some form or writing, so I can put it in my own collection.

DFM chat on the ideal news product

AR dreams

Digital First Media friends and other journalists, members of the community and fans of journalism are invited to take part in a Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time, to talk about all things journalism.

Today we are going to take things from the user's side. What do you want in a news product? What would it look like? And what things would you actually click on? Note —as shown from research and surveys — that people tend to respond on an idealized basis (everybody wants 10,000-word investigations!), but metrics show how news consumers actually behave. Is there a sweet spot? With that caveat, how do you currently consume the news and how would that be better? AND, what steps, if any, can newsrooms take today to get to that point. Is this sustainable?

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Paved ideas at the intersection of raccoon cats and journalism

The first Smorgasburg Upstate weekend came and went and people mingled and ate and browsed crafts and funky furniture and old toys and tried to park. It was a well-attended affair and I'm curious to see how it fares on subsequent Saturdays. There were lots of familiar Kingston faces and venues at the event, and the food part of the fair had most of the attention from attendees. If you are interested, Brian has the deets.
It was a bit too hot for my little one, so we ended up going to Kingston Point shortly afterward, where you could see the Hutton Brickyard while bathing. It is a great little beach on the Hudson and its water quality is fine, and I suspect, from my anecdotal conversations, that some locals avoid it out of fear of either water quality or mingling with the proles. More beach for us.

DFM chat: Fail fast, sure. But what did you learn? And what's working?

Digital First Media friends and other journalists, members of the community and fans of journalism are invited to take part in a Twitter chat Wednesday at noon, Eastern Time, to talk about all things journalism.

Today we are are talking about news experimentation and emerging technologies. We're all for trying new things and failing fast and all that. So what's working and what needs tweaking? What have news organizations learned from 'failed' experiments? How are those experiments better serving the story and its intended audience? Bring your tips, links and VR goggles. Let's take a ride.

If you want to be in the post chat archive, post a comment in the container or a tweet with the hashtag "#dfmchat" so it can automatically appear below.

Write. Write. Write

"Write. Write. Write" is the sort of all-encompassing and kind-of-lazy advice that feels OK to dole out or tweet when you have nothing better to say to fellow scribes who are having writer's block, or are frustrated with the news or their Facebook feeds or are having some sort of dilemmas.
But for ~writers~ it also is good advice and one that I'm currently following.